12 BIEDS OF NORFOLK. 



a hole quite througli, looking very mucli as if a stray sliot 

 had caused all the mischief and thus given to the whole 

 head a much more Corvine than Eaptorial character. 



FALCOWRY IN" NORFOLK. 



Of the " decline and fall" of falconry in this coimty, 

 there is but little to add to the interesting and elaborate 

 paper on the subject in Lubbock's " Fauna of Norfolk." 

 The introduction of fire-arms, with the increased faci- 

 lities thus afforded for the killing of game, was no doubt 

 the primary cause of its gradual decay, and the rage for 

 ^'preserving" of late years has given the last blow to this 

 once Regal sport ; whilst the laws which now protect the 

 partridge and pheasant, represent, in our own times, 

 the pains and penalties which formerly attached to 

 the theft or destruction of either hawk or falcon.* Yet, 



* The late Col. Hamilton, in his " Eeminiscences of a Sports- 

 man," writing on the history of falconry, remarks — " In the 

 34th of Edw. III. it was made felony to steal a hawk ; to take its 

 eggs even out of a person's own ground, was punishable with 

 imprisonment for a year and a day, besides a fine at the King's 

 pleasure. In Queen Elizabeth's reign the imprisonment was re- 

 duced to three months, but the offender must find security for seven 

 years, or be in prison till he did." — Any person finding a falcon, or 

 any species of hawk, was likewise compelled by law to carry it to 

 the Sheriff of the County, who was bound publicly to announce 

 the fact that its owner might claim it, and if not claimed within 

 four months it became the property of the finder if a qualified 

 person; if not he received a reward and the Sheriff kept the hawk. 

 The church even at times extended its formidable ^gis over these 

 favoured birds, as in the above year of the reign of Edward the III. 

 •' The Bishop of Ely excommunicated certain persons for stealing 

 a hawk that was sitting upon her perch in the cloisters of Ber- 

 m.ondsey, in Southwark; but this piece of sacrilege was com- 

 mitted during Divine service, and the hawk was the property of 

 the Bishop." — The costliness also of this ancient pastime may be 

 gathered from the fact, that " In the reign of James the 1st, Sir 

 Thos. Monson gave £1,000 (about £2,000 of our present money) 

 for a cast of hawks." 



